Avatars are becoming an integral part of how we communicate with one another in a digital world. The potential uses for avatars range from increased immersion of a player into a role-playing video game environment to protecting a person's privacy when engaged in remote video chat. In any case, advances in technology and computing algorithms enhance the realism of communication via an avatar. Avatars in video games allow users to control the facial gestures of mystical creatures and characters with their own facial expressions. Also, in the context of remote video chat, advanced avatars are nearly indistinguishable from actual real-time video of the user.
Although advances in technology typically unleash endless possibilities and near-reality experiences, it comes at a cost. The computational resources typically required for video editing and rendering are considerable, particularly when it comes to rendering life-like video and motion. For example, many applications require devices to have significant graphical processing capabilities and dedicated memory, which results in substantial power consumption and thus hurts battery life. Naturally, as the number of avatars being independently rendered on a screen increases, so too does the computational overhead. As such, low-power mobile computing devices such as mobile phones typically have poor performance in rendering multiple avatars simultaneously.